The new Orkneyinga Saga - an excerpt from the Annals of Elin

June 12th 2008, Thursday

Our trip began very early in the morning of June 12th., although not as early as planned and I was left feeling like an orphan at the side of the road waiting for my ride. Finally Catriona and Sandra showed up and I finished moving the last of my things to my new flat before leaving Glasgow.
We went straight to Glencoe and the visitor center there to have a cup of tea (coke in my case) and a bit of cake. We were able to stop for a few minutes before we had to head off in search of the place that was going to take us horseback riding. Yes, I know what you are thinking, ME ON A HORSE, hillarious. Well it worked, I got up, the horse was huge, I had to take two steps up the mounting block to get there, but on I went and I went first too. After fifteen minutes I was thinking, 'why did I agree to this', then I started to enjoy it a bit and especially the very soothing massage my behind was getting, so I just relaxed as much as I possibly could and prayed that the horse knew what it was doing. (Calling a horse IT is just wrong, I will introduce noun genders into English even if it kills me). Then we got a nice treat, on the way we saw a castle and not just any castle either, apparently it is a castle that was made famous in the Monty Python film 'The Holy Grail'. We even stopped by it and the horse keeper snapped some photos of us with the castle in the background, fabulous. Now there is photographic evidence of me on a horse, now no one can doubt me!
After this little adventure we returned to Glencoe for lunch, although we bought our lunch in a nice little village called Ballachulish (hehehe). While we were munchin in Glencoe a fither jet zoomed passed us so fast that I barely registered it but still got a good view of it before it disappeared in between the peaks in Glencoe. Thrilling and very very noisy! When we had wetted our appetites we drove to Loch Ness and found the Youth Hostel we were going to be staying at. We were a bit early and it hadn't opened yet, so we went on a wee treck down by Loch Ness before getting the keys to the room. Boy, I nearly turned around and said I would be sleeping in the car, but decided to be brave and stayed. The place was minging, I really don't recommend it, not nice at all. The only nice thing about it was the common room. Thankfully we were here for only one night and I was sure I could manage that and I did.

June 13th 2008, Friday

We left the hostel as soon as we could, and drove up to Urquhart Castle by Loch Ness. Spent about two hours there running around ruins, and I promise they were ruins when we got there. Before we headed off we had some tea and cakes and then headed over to Inverness. Spent a few hours there browsing in the shops before we headed off again. We were headed to John O'Groats were we were staying the night at another Youth Hostel, and hoping for a better one than the one we spent the previous night in. But on the way there we were going to try to find my land! Yes, finally this Lady Glencairn was going to visit her land in Scotland and take a photo of it. I had a map and I even had GPS co-ordinates for it so what could go wrong. Well, everything! The map wasn't very detailed so it didn't help very much, our GPS man Tim the leprachaun (whose name is Sean but is called Tim) showed us that it lay quite far out in the sea. It only worked if while we were driving reconfigured our co-ordinates every few minutes that we were nearly able to find it, we came close ... to the co-ordinates anyway but not the place. So we had to go back and finally we decided that we were close enough that we could with good conciousness take photos of me on my land. So I selected a nice piece of land with ruins on them and planted myself down with the Icelandic flag and my friends snapped some photos of me there, in a howling wind! Then we headed off to John O'Groats doubting Tim when he showed us the nearest petrol station in DUBLIN, IRELAND!
Finally made it to our destination and this youth hostel was so much nicer! We had a very good time here and even though it was a large room, intended for at least six persons we were alone through the night and were able to double up on duvets for the night! Played a game of Scrabble before going to sleep. Next day we were headed off to Orkney!

June 14th 2008, Saturday

Woke up extremely early because we had to take the ferry to Orkney at nine o'clock. We got on the ferry and everything seemed to be all right until about ten minutes of the hour and fifteen minutes journey I went green and then horizontal and was quite seasick the entire way to Orkney. Rubbish Viking! I managed to fall asleep, which I am very thankful for and very thankful when we came back on terra firma. We drove straight to our chalet that we had rented for the week and it was such a nice and cosy place we instantly fell in love with it. Poor Sandra had a difficult time though dealing with the Orcadian speak, although I found it to be very nice and sing-song like, very interesting. We got chalet nr. 5, a cosy place with a foyer. On the left hand site was the bathroom, on right hand side a room with two beds and straight across was the living room area. There to the left was a tiny kitchen and dining room, and to the right was a sofa that was also a bed and a dresser with a television on it. The great thing I found about this was that we had to put a coin in a meter to get things going like heat and electricity, I am such a city girl I had never seen anything like it.
When we had sort of settled in we set of again and this time we went into Kirkwall, found a parking space and hopped out. Found a tiny little pub for some grub and then headed off to the Tourist Information centre to find out where we could do our grocery shopping. We found Lidl and managed to do some basic shopping although I was quite shocked to discover that they didn't have Coke Cola at all, they only had Pepsi! Suddenly I just wanted to go back home, but then I figured that there must be a place where I could get Coke so as it was an emergency I took two 2l Pepsi bottles just as a precaution!
By this point we were very tired and just went back to our chalet and settled in more comfortably. Around five we broke out the Trivial Pursuit and entertained ourselves with trying out our wits and wisdom before breaking for Dr. Who! Catriona won the first game! We then settled down in front of my computer and watched a film before going to bed, I talked to my mom for a bit before going to bed as well. We had meant to go to bed a lot earlier but in the end it was somewhat passed midnight when we finally made it in.

June 15th 2008, Sunday

We decided to take it easy today as it was Sunday and not a lot is open on Sundays here aside from Historic Scotland sites. We decided to go to Skara Brae. Of course since we were only travelling around a small island we decided not to use Tim and just follow signposts. Seemed like a good idea until we discovered that Orkney doesn't seem to like signposts all that much. And we kind of went into the wrong direction.
Quote: 'We are going the right way ... roughly!' Catriona
Yes, that was true, because we were on a very small island it is quite easy to get back on track, but that doesn't mean it isn't extremely funny. In the end we made it and parked the car outside the visitor centre. Then we proceded to step 5000 years back in time, to a neolithic village incredibly well preserved. It was very windy but we still managed to take a very good look around the place. Until 1850 the settlement had been hidden under the earth, they were unearthed in a heavy storm and the owner of the land helped with the excavation of the village. It was amazing to see it and to hear the story as well, at the end of the tour around Skara Brae we were allowed to go to Skaill House, that used to belong to the one who found Skara Brae village. It had been turned into a museum both in relation to Skara Brae but also to the family that lived there. (It was very much like going through the houses at Árbæjarsafni to see how time stood still in the house, it was quite amazing). We then had to brave the wild wind again and made it to the visitor center just before it closed down for the day and managed to grab tea and cake before setting off for home.
After tea we went for a short walk around the place we are staying at, took some postcards to the postbox and went out onto a pier we can see from our windows. It was a very nice evening and the wind was not as bad as it had been during the day. We returned back to our chalet and watched a couple of Mock the Week shows before turning in for the night.

June 16th 2008, Monday

We woke up at eight but none of us was very ready to move yet. Shortly after nine we contacted the Orkney College to enquire if they had any scheduled archeological guides around sites presently being excavated, but unfortunately we weren‘t lucky enough. They were going to start at Gurness the next Monday, we were quite sad that we missed it, but unfortunately nothing we could do about it. Thankfully this didn‘t mess up any our plans for the day or for the rest of the week, it just meant we had an extra day to do everything we wanted to do.
Today we started at Maeshowe, an ancient burrial place dating from around the same time as Skara Brae or 5000 years old. Unfortunately they didn‘t allow us to take pictures in thankfully there are guide books available and of course I got one. The entrance into Maeshowe is not very high, only just over a meter high and about 70cm wide, not very easy access for tall Vikings, but I made it and the entrance into Maeshowe was definitely not the most challenging on this trip. Inside Maeshowe were runic inscriptions left by Vikings that visited there about 1000 years ago, and some of the things they wrote was a bit naughty! When we came out from Maeshowe we had to sprint to the car and drive as fast as we possibly could up to the Rings of Brodgar where we were going on a wee walk with a site ranger who was going to tell us about the site.
The Rings of Brodgar are similar to Stonehenge, although a bit more ‚henge‘-like than Stonehenge apparently, originally there were 60 stones in a circle spanning 104m in diameter but now there are only about 28-29 stones left standing. It was so much fun walking around the stones, which incidently are about 5-600 years older than Stonehenge and is also larger! Of course the Vikings had stopped by here as well and left a note, saying ‚Björn was here!‘, and of course I have a photo of myself by this stone, to prove that ‚Elin was here!‘ ... I didn‘t leave a note. We also stopped by the Stones of Stenness, a much smaller ring of originally twelve standing stones but now only about a half of them standing.
Afterwards we went into Kirkwall and stopped at the Co-op and grabbed a few necessary items, including a Coke Cola for me!!! Watched television for a while before turing in for the night.

June 17th 2008, Tuesday and the National Holiday of Iceland

It was a cold and dreary day so we decided to keep near to Kirkwall today. We got into Kirkwall around 10 and started with a tour of St. Magnus Cathedral, a very nice looking church. From there we went on to The Bishop‘s and the Earl‘s Palace that are just around the corner from the cathedral. The Bishop‘s Palace dates from 12th century and the Earl‘s Palace dates from 1600, although magnificent they are only ruins today sadly. I went up to the top of the Bishop‘s Palace and the view over Kirkwall was amazing. Kirkwall is also a surprising town of around 8000, it was still quite easy to navigate it. We managed to find a coffeeshop that wasn‘t packed with the entire population of Kirkwall and had a nice lunch before heading off to do more exploring.
We headed off to Orphir to take a look at the Orkneyinga Saga Centre and boy did I learn a valuable lesson there. The word ‚Centre‘ doesn‘t necessarily mean a centre, that it can also just mean A ROOM! I was quite disappointed and annoyed. The trip wasn‘t a total disaster though because just outside the ‚Centre‘ there was the Earl‘s Bu, the ruins of a 12th century farm of one of the Earl‘s of Orkney. Beside that was a cemetary where the ruins of a church from around the same time as the Earl‘s Bu and inspired by a church the Vikings saw in their crusades to Jerusalem.
For the third and last leg of our journey of discovery this day we decided to head over to the Ortak Jewellery shop and Visitor Centre. Ortak is an Orkney based family of designers where it is possible to go and have your own design made into fabulous jewellery. This was also an opportunity to go visit a Iron Age grain earthhouse, and the key to get into the earthhouse is kept at Ortak. Let‘s just say I made it to the bottom but not to the actual grain storage space! Not really thinking of tall Vikings when they constructed that thing. Sandra made it through though by crawling on all fours, she deserves credit, she is quite determined to see these things once she‘s actually there. When Sandra finally made it up again we were all quite tired and decided to go home. I got a phone call from my mom and got to talk to my niece and brother as well. My niece had to hear about me going horseback riding and of course she also needed to know what kind of horse it was, what colour and the name as well. She was all dressed up because of the National Holiday and had gone to the city center to get a balloon and candy. Before we went to sleep we played another game of Trivial Pursuit which I actually managed to win this time round, a good end to a good day.

June 18th 2008, Wednesday

We headed towards Tingwall (Þingvalla) today, I don‘t really know what I was expecting but definitely not what we found ... which was nothing. It seemed a very un-tingwall-y-like place. But it wasn‘t all for nothing, we booked a ferry for Friday to take us to Rousay from Tingwall. Having done that we headed off to the main atractions of the day. First we stopped at Gurness, where there is a Broch and an Iron Age village, incredibly large and it is still possible to see how the village and the landscape looked, it really is quite extrodinary to see this and very hard to explain. We spent quite a time there taking a good and close look at the settlement, just outside the settlement there was a 12th century norse burrial site, where they excavated a skeleton of a woman and some artifacts. Around noon we headed off again and this time towards Birsay. Birsay is a tidal island just of the mainland of Orkney and is only passable on foot two hours before and after low tide. The tide was around four in the afternoon but we still had to get there and we were also thinking of having lunch somewhere ont he way. We came to the Brough of Birsay around one-ish and had lunch in the car, we were so sensible that we packed some sandwiches. Because we still had time we popped into the town of Birsay and took a look at the Earl‘s Palace there, which as most of the things we have seen so far has been, was in ruins, but still very beautiful. We then moved the car closer to the pathway across to the island of Birsay and walked across, the walk took about five – ten minutes accross beach sand, stones and a bit of a walkway and then we were there. We made it up to the Visitor Center and entered the site ... at which point we discovered that there is no Brough at Birsay! Nope, there was one at one time but there isn‘t any longer. Instead there is the remains of a 12th century norse village. An incredibly large village and very well developed. The houses had indoor heating and they had a sauna as well as an impressive drainage system. Even from the earlier settlement site dating from around 10th-11th century there was visible remains of drainage system. It didn‘t take too long to walk about the ruins and examine the settlement so we decided to take a tour around the island and tried to spot some puffins although we were not successful in that. Sandra more than once went a bit too close to the edge of the cliffs to try to find the puffins, so much so that Catriona and I were positively ill watching her. But she made it back always in one piece so it was fine. When we came home Sandra was exhausted and she aslo had a headache so we allowed her to fall asleep in the bedroom while we were busy in the kitchen, well ... Catriona was busy in the kitchen making potatoe wedges and stuff while I was sorting through the photos of the day. The personal best I think so far, 409 photos in a single day! When Sandra woke up we sat down for a bit of television before turning in and wrote a postcard to Carol at the Celtic Department, but after this we were all exhausted and were quick to fall asleep.

June 19th 2008, Thursday

We didn‘t rise up as early as we have done the past few days but that was all right as we thought that this day wasn‘t going to be very strenous, right! We were heading towards the Tomb of the Eagles where we were going to let Sandra go crawl into a small tomb while Catriona and I waited for her at the coffee shop ... if there was one! When we came there, we saw that the possibility of a coffee shop were non-existent. This was actually a private property, the government had not taken an interest in the site so after having been ignored for 30 years the ownership of the site reverted back to the family who owned the land. The story is incredible. We came into an area that had been modified to accept visitors where we got a small tour of the saga of the tomb and how it was discovered. Not only that we actually got to see how the people lived and how they worked the stone, it was incredibly. They showed us three skulls of people who had been found in the tomb, the scull of an old woman, a man and a young woman who had a genetic disorder which left her face distorted and most likely suffered from blindness and other forms of illness because of it. Today there are 6 individuals on the Orkney island with the same disorder and deformed skulls. Incredible! We even got to handle some of the items that had been made and used 5000 years ago! That was most definitely the highlight of the tour, to see how perfectly everything was made, you could not even imagine how it is done today with modern tools how impeccably perfect the items were. We also got a tour in the next room that dealt with the ruins of a bronze-age settlement found near the farmhouse itself. It is only a small farm but the outline is still visible. To get to the tomb of the Eagles we had to walk around a mile, and because it had been raining they lent us wellies and the girls also got water proof trousers, but since I didn‘t intend to go into the tomb I decided to just get some wellies. When we came to the tomb we were amazed at how low the entrance was, it really was low, probably only around 50 cm in hight. There was a rahter largish skateboard there and a rope had been stung from the ceiling of the entrance into the tomb where people could if they lay on the skateboard propell themselves into the tomb. Sandra decided that it was easiest to crawl in. But as I do not have the physical ability to do that because of my knee I used the skateboard and actually went inside ... and made it. I didn‘t even get stuck. Catriona then crawled in after me. Inside the tomb we one chamber where they had left some skulls behind to show us how it would have looked like at the time of the excavation and what it actually was used for. When the tomb had been excavated it contained thousands of bones and also a multitude of bones belonging to the wite-tailed eagle which gives it‘s name to the tomb. The bones indicated that the tomb had been in used for at least around 800 years, but why there were eagle bones there as well, no one knows. We made it out of the tomb again and went over to the excarnation site nearby. It is believed that the neolithic people practised a so called excarnation in regards to their dead. Where they left the bodies out to rid the body of flesh and when it had decayed they placed the bones in the tomb. Not a very nice thing to think about but to each their own. We decided to go home for a short lunch before heading into Kirkwall to do some shopping. When we came to Kirkwall we hit the stores but unfortunately I couldn‘t find anything nice to buy not for anyone I knew or even myself. I went home empty handed and very disappointed. We spent the evening watching Mock the week and I spoke to mom for a few minutes before we turned in for the night.

June 20th 2008, Friday ,Catriona‘s Birthday‘

We woke up really early today because we were going on a ferry to Rousay and had to be there before eleven. We wished Catriona a happy birthday but I was saving the birthday present for tonight so she just had to wait for it, hehehe. Sandra on the other hand gave her half of her present but the other half was going to have to wait until we came back to Glasgow as they didn‘t have what Sandra had intended to buy for Catriona unfortunately. It was really not a very nice day to travel to Rousay but since we had already booked and there were sites there that we wanted to take a look at so we went nonetheless.
It was a tiny ferry, so tiny, we had to back up onto the deck and stay there for the remainder of the journey as it was so tight all around us that we couldn‘t even open the car doors. It only took about 20 minutes to cross over to Rousay and we were quite thankful when we were back on terra firma. Be began visiting the chambered cairns of Taversöe Tuick and the Blackhammer cairn before giving up before the elements and seeking shelter at the Taversöe Hotel for lunch. The rain-ponchoes from Historic Scotland really came in handy here but it didn‘t completely shelter us from the rain or the wind so we were very happy to be inside for a while and dry out before heading back out into the unknown. Next on the map was Midhowe chambered cairn and broch. When we arrived I saw that it was going to be a downward walk to the shore and my shoes were definitely not up to it so I was left behind in the car while the girls absconded down to the broch and cairn. I really wished I could have gone there but there was no way with my shoes and the condition my knee was in at that moment. So I sat behind bored trying to see if I could catch a glimpse of them every so often scampering about the sites. Thankfully the chamberd cairn was inside a building that had been erected over it to protect it from the elements so they got a bit of a respite from the weather. They then came back to the car nearly drowned on the way but very happy to have been down there to see it. I kind of envy them, but when they came back they told me that it was a bit of a climb and I knew that that I had done the right thing and stayed behind. Again we sought shelter at the hotel for a while before one last trip out and this took us right around the whole of the island, and we figured out that you can basically travel around the island in about half an hours time, it really isn‘t big. On the way we passed a lake where there were some crannocks, which are basically iron-age settlements made on a man made islands in the lochs, but we couldn‘t go any nearer to see them more up close so we only snapped a few photos of them before heading back to the ferry. The ferry wasn‘t there yet, so we popped into a small cafe where we got a delicious scone with butter and jam before heading home on the ferry again. Stopped in Kirkwall on the way home to grab some stuff and then headed home to cook some potatoe wedges and watched some tv as well. Then we went to sleep, our final night at the chalet before heading home tomorrow.

June 21st 2008, Saturday

Woke up at 7:30 to finish packing and tidy up the chalet before we left around ten. But we weren‘t ready to go home yet, the ferry didn‘t leave until six so we headed towards Minehowe but were a bit too early as it didn‘t open up until elleven so we popped into Kirkwall for a few seconds where I actually managed to make my first kill so to speak ... I bouth a bracelet from Ortak! We then headed back towards Minehowe, it‘s a much smaller site than the others we took a peek at, it is basically only one chamber about 30 feet down. We were handed some wind-up flashlights and hard-hats because the only way to get down there is to go backwards as it is a very narrow passage. There is a real mistery as to what Minehowe is, it dates somwhere between 1000 – 3000 years ago but well worth it to see even though you don‘t really see much at all when you get to the bottom as it is only about 2-3 meters in diameter when you get down there. Which is why only two people can go down at once. Sandra of course was the guinea pig and went first, then I descended and boy it was a tight squeeze sometimes. When I made it up, Catriona decided to have a go as well and she was very happy in the end of having gone down as well.
Now we had done all the major sites we had planned to take a look at only a few smaller ones left that we were saving for this day really. It was the Unstan cairn near Maeshowe and the Barnhouse near the Stones of Stenness which coincided nicely with the start of the St. Magnus festival in Orkney. So we went first to Unstan, which as so many of the historical sites in Orkney was on a private land but they had made it so that visitors were able to get to it without playing havock with the livestock or the land. The builders had obviously met up with some gruesome vikings so they made sure that it wasn‘t not accessible to tall people. I basically got stuck in it so I didn‘t go in. Whenever I tried to maneuover my body in, my shoulderblades got caught up in the ceiling and I couldn‘t move my legs back or forth so there was no way. The girls made it in though, I guess a few cm do matter when building a cairn, they took some photos and I got to appreciate it from them instead.
We then went over to the Barnhouse and took some photos, the Barnhouse is basically a iron age village recently excavated and very nicely situated between the Rings of Brodgar and Maeshowe.
Since we thought that the musical performance was supposed to take place at the Ring of Brodgar we hurried in our car there to see if we could get a good spot to park and then waited for the people to arrive. They never came, we walked up to the ring and saw then that the gathering seemed to be at the Stones of Stenness ... basically where we had been parked a few minutes before so we hurried back and thankfully found a place to park. I must say I was expecting something a bit more than what we actually got. A woman playing the violin and a man beating a drum were playing reels and other country-folk music before the kids joined the woman. Not really my cup of tea regarding music, especially since they had been hyping it up a bit, saying that the stones provided great acoustics which in fact they didn‘t do at all.
Well, in the end we had to leave, I was able to pop into the shop near Maeshowe to pick up some monkshaped book ends and then it was on to the ferry.
It was a much smoother ride home this time around and I didn‘t get sick at all although Sandra was feeling a bit green. I climbed up to the 2nd deck and took photos like crazy all around me. It was so much fun and so nice to feel the wind in your face while cutting across the waves. I was having a marvelous time and didn‘t really want to go in but in the end it was either that or freeze. Then it was only about ten minutes until we docked so it was ok.
We headed straight for John O‘Groats before going to the youth hostel because we wanted to take a photo of us by the Last House in Scotland before retiring for the night. We got to stay in the hostel room alone for the night which was nice as it means more duvets to go around. These rooms are usually made up for six so, it was two duvets a person, which meant a warm night!

June 22nd 2008, Sunday

Today we basically didn‘t do much else but drive straight home. It was a rotten day, rain pelting on our window as we drove down to Glasgow. After about two hours of driving we stopped at a hotel to get something to eat and drink and straighten out a bit before heading off. Thankfully we had David Tennant reading Dr. Who for us so we weren‘t bored on the way. Stopped in Wick to pick up some petrol and then headed to Portmahomack, an archaeology site of a recently excavated picitsh monastery. We got to see what they found and how the excavation progressed but we were unable to see the site itself and most of the things that were on display were replicas of what had been found, but it was still nice to see it even though we were a bit disappointed. We stopped at a hotel for lunch, where I had a very nice beef stake with potatoes and vegtables and sauce, all very nice. Next we stopped for a few minutes in Inverness to pick up another audio book with David Tennant before heading off. Around six we were getting a bit hungry and wanted to stop somewhere for food but since it was Sunday not many places stayed open so we were unable to find any place until we were basically at the outskirts of Glasgow and then we just decided to hightail it home and get food later. So we finally arrived in Glasgow around eight in the evening, very sad that the holiday was over but also very happy of having gone and we really enjoyed ourselves the whole time. It was really one of the hightlights of the year for me and I couldn‘t have done it with a better company as the quote book is a good testament to!